Joel Khalu

Joel has been actively involved with sport in Cairns for over 15 years.  After representing Cairns as a junior in Basketball, Cricket & Rugby Union, he made the decision to commit to basketball, with a goal of competing at high levels in the sport.

In 1998, he signed with the Cairns Marlins, where at the age of 17, he was the youngest playing competing nationally in the Continental Basketball Association.  In five seasons with the Marlins, he won two North Conference Championships and was a member of the team which brought Cairns its first ever National Continental Basketball Association Championship.

In 2001, Khalu earned a spot in the Cairns Taipans Basketball Academy and was a training player with the Cairns Taipans National Basketball League (N.B.L) Team.  After a year in the program he was offered an athletic scholarship to play basketball at Waukesha Tech College in the U.S.A.  In two years at Waukesha Tech College, he earned All-Conference, All-State and National honors and was ranked as the top NJCAA player in the State of Wisconsin.  Setting numerous basketball records; he once scored 43-points in a single college game.  In his sophomore season, Khalu captained the Waukesha Tech Owls to the Wisconsin State Basketball Championship and to the NJCAA National Tournament.  Joel Graduated from Waukesha Tech College with a degree in Para-Education and in a college of 32,000 students, he received the prestigious Outstanding Student Award for excellence in Academics, Sport & Extra-Curricular activities.

After finishing college, Khalu returned from the United States to once again play for the Cairns Marlins in the Australian Basketball Association competition. In 2006, he captained the Cairns Marlins Indigenous team, which won the first ever Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Basketball Association National Championship in Sydney. From this tournament Khalu was named captain of the Australian National Indigenous Basketball Team which went on to win the Bronze Medal at the Arafura Games in May of 2007.  In September of 2007, Khalu won his second Australian Basketball Association National Championship with the Cairns Marlins.

After spending much time coaching, mentoring and designing programs for teenagers, Joel developed the Hoop Dreaming Project to help combat the many negative issues and barriers facing Indigenous young people.  "The main goal of the H.D.P is to create positives opportunities and outlets for Indigenous young people and to reinforce the messages of leading active, healthy, crime-free lifestyles."

Along with being the Director of the Hoop Dreaming Project, Khalu is also the Participation & Indigenous Programs Manager for Cairns Basketball; Talent Identification Officer for Basketball Australia’s ‘Deadly Basketballers’ Indigenous Program and is the QLD delegate on the National Indigenous Basketball Council.